Late in the evening we are passing the Watergate of Esna before landing near Edfu at night. So the first hop(stage) is done. Like in Luxor, we use again the cooler air in the morning for our trip to the Temple of Horus.

Again we do not need to walk. This time we are taken by several horse carriages to the station near the Edfu Temple. Our travel guide told us not to give tips as everything was already well paid. Our coach, who was of course hoping for an additional “Bakschisch” wasn’t happy about that.
One moment later, just sitting and noticing a “Hallo!” from the side, there is an Egyptian photo that proofs our trip by carriage.
By the way, the station belongs to the Dorothy-Brooke-Hospital-Foundation for animals, which treats the work-donkeys and workhorses in case of illness or injuries for free.

From far away we can already see the temple’s mighty 36 meters high entry-pylons ,which is dedicated to the hawk-like god Horus. “You all know him, you just don’t know it.” Our guide explained. Well I know the “Horometre”, the timing device (clock), but what can be the connection to the god Horus?
Actually I’m not that wrong, because the much better known “Horoscope” is derived from Horus, it’s the “Eye of Horus”. And that’s not all, the Eye of Horus has been the strongest amulet to the Egyptians, which is even today used as protection against the “evil eye”.

Besides oversized images of Horus as well as images of his parents Isis and Osiris, the reliefs at the entry shows the Pharaoh who "slays the enemies". However, more popular with the visitors are two Horus-statues that don't object a photo with the holidaymakers (we've taken one, too). After all, it is allowed to make use of your camera everywhere - also in the inner-temple -, at least.

The inner rooms are awesome; they're covered with hieroglyphs and reliefs. Unfortunately, they got spoiled by several notches in some rooms. We learned that during the roman time the early Christians hid in the temples and graves. They destroyed the images in the rooms they lived in, whether for revenge or provocation. Of course, the despised the old beliefs. Fortunately, the 32 columns in the first courtyard as well as both of the column halls (with images of the temple founding and several cults around the pharaoh) at the back of the courtyard were spared.

We find it very pleasant that there are even in case of much traffic of visitors time and again single rooms in which you can calmly take all the Isis and Horus pictures in. But also not too long because the carriage is waiting again. Unfortunately, it waits at a marked unfavourable place.
The way there is leading past several bazaars so that constantly somebody haggles with us about things we really don’t have any use for.
But it is a pity that at the end the coachman gets extremely pushing and, as he realizes that I’m as hard as granite, turns to a fellow passenger to loudly persuade her that all other Europeans, no matter if they are French, Italians, or Scandinavians, always would tip him some money.
The picture of the beginning of the trip is refused by us as well. It is true that things like that can be a nice memory, but unfortunately, the quality of the photo is so bad, that it was only a pity about the paper – apart from that we are not really on the picture.

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